Understanding Systems Thinking

R U S S E L L M A R T I N
A S S O C I A T E S&
Russell Martin & Associates
9084 Technology Drive, Suite 500, Fishers, IN 46038
(317) 475-9311 @nolecture
info@russellmartin.com
www.russellmartin.com
Systems Thinking

Why Systems Thinking? An Example
Creating a Causal Loop Diagram
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread
within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things
are bound together. All things connect.”
- Chief Seattle
© Russell Martin & Associates www.russellmartin.comPage 2

 Systemic, complex problems are tough
to fix; they keep coming back.
 There is no language for discussing the
interaction of multiple, complicated
parts.
 There is no recognition that our
‘interpretation’ of the situation drives the
system.
 Time delays and feedback loops are
also drivers of good or bad systems.
 Fixes may not be possible, but
improvement is.
 We’re multitasking and we can’t think
well.
Page 3
I never
should
have
sent
that
email
last
night!!!
© Russell Martin & Associates www.russellmartin.com

 As Exercise increases, Health
increases (same)
 As Health increases, Exercise
increases (same)
 As Exercise decreases, Health
decreases (same)
 As Health decreases, Exercise
decreases (same)
Page 4
Health Exercise
S
S
Time
Growth

A S S O C I A T E S&Page 5
Amount
Eaten
Weight
S
O
 As Amount Eaten increases, Weight
increases (same)
 As Weight increases, Amount Eaten
decreases (opposite)
 As Amount Eaten decreases,
Weight decreases (same)
 As Weight decreases, Amount
Eaten decreases (opposite)
Time
Growth

A S S O C I A T E S&Page 6 © Russell Martin & Associates www.russellmartin.com

Opposite
Same Opposite
Opposite
Same
Same

“Successful adaptation to the environment requires that an organism be
capable of learning.”
- Richard Restak, M.D. “The Brain”
Page 9 © Russell Martin & Associates www.russellmartin.com

Pick a problem that you’ve tried to solve
unsuccessfully.
Create a team of vested interest.
Create a WHY question.
Build a Reinforcing Loop that supports the
question aka Rock Back and Forth.
Find the Balancing Loops (and other Reinforcing
Loops) Tell the stories in ‘both directions’.
Page 10Page 10 © Russell Martin & Associates www.russellmartin.com

o WHY is _______happening?
o No WHAT or HOW
o Avoid: Should, blame
“Why should we sell more?”
“Why doesn’t the Help Desk
help?”
o Seek: Observable fact
“Why does fund raising
fluctuate?
Why can’t we
steadily increase
fund raising?
Triggering QuestionTriggering Question
??Page 11 © Russell Martin & Associates www.russellmartin.com

Start with the NOUN of the
WHY question?
Why does PRIDE
interrupt our faith and
happiness?

…may change as you learn

Create a WHY question you have a passion for
solving.
Vote / Sign Up.
Create the best WHY question – keep it in plain
sight.

SS
S
Portion of
Revenue Spent
on Fund
Raising
Fund
raisers
Donations
Revenue
Links: “As Donations increase,
what happens to Revenue?
(decrease/increase = same/opposite)
S
“Why can’t we increase
donations?”
Variables = measurable nouns
(not quantifiable)
Avoid sequence…
don’t think
THEN
Bad Example:
Donations
happen then
buying happens

Donations
Think
backwards
Close the loop
Think forward
Start Here
What happens
when donations
increase?
What causes
donations to
increase?

SS
S
Portion of
Revenue Spent
on Fund
Raising
Fund
raisers
Donations
Revenue
S
“Why can’t we increase donations?”
Delay = a
passage of time
that provokes
flawed
perceptions of
cause and effect

Remember your best WHY question – keep it plain
sight and change it if it makes sense to.
Create the NIRVANA / HELL reinforcing loop.

“Our experience is that donations are not
steadily increasing or steadily decreasing. It
‘feels’ more like a roller coaster. Never gets to
good or too bad. Something bounces us back
up or down. There had to be more than a
Nirvana/Hell reinforcing loop. Something else
is going on.”
What keeps donations from steadily
increasing?

Reinforcing Loop Balancing Loop
S
Sales Loop
O
S
Market Loop
S
Fund Raising
Productivity Perceived
Timely
Follow-up
Timely
Follow-Up
Attention
to Donors
S
S
S
S
Reinforcing loops will have an even number (or no) Opposites
Balancing loops will have an odd number of Opposites
Portion of
Revenue
Spent on
Fund Raising
Fund
Raisers
Donations
Revenue
S
“Why can’t we increase donations?”

Reinforcing Loop Balancing Loop Balancing Loop
Fund raising goes UP
UP UP
(or DOWN DOWN
DOWN)
Backlog of follow-up work
influences reputation and
deadens fund raising
Additional support help
arrives too little, too late
S
S
S
O
S S
OS
S
S
Request for
Additional
Staff /
Support
Staff /
Support
S
S
Portion of
Revenue
Spent on
Fund Raising
Fund
Raisers
Donations
Revenue
Fund Raising
Timely
Follow-up
Timely
Follow-Up
Attention
to Donors
donations?”

Reinforcing Loop Balancing Loop Balancing Loop
Fund raising goes UP
UP UP
(or DOWN DOWN
DOWN)
Backlog of follow-up work
influences reputation and
deadens fund raising
Additional support help
arrives too little, too late
O
S
S
S
S S
Sales Loop
O
Production Loop
S
Market Loop
S
S
Request for
Additional
Staff /
Support
Staff /
Support
S
S
Portion of
Revenue
Spent on
Fund Raising
Fund
Raisers
Donations
Revenue
Fund Raising
Follow-
upTime
Follow-
upTime
Attention
to Donors
donations?”

Remember the WHY question – keep it plain sight.
Create the Balancing Loops and other reinforcing
loops that tell your actual story.
You have 45 minutes to build your
Causal Loop Diagram

Map Mental Models
Name the Loops
A “Remember” Checklist

Does it Feel Right?(“this doesn’t feel like a balancing loop to me…”)
When we have more
donations we can ramp up our
fund raisers
The more fund
raisers we have, the
more donations we’ll
get
Every donation
creates revenue
We only invest in
fund raising when
we have extra
money
People will be reluctant to
give again
The staff is stressed and
needs help quickly
It takes
awhile to find
good people
As donors feel they
are unappreciated,
it will be harder to
fund raise.
O
S
S
S
S S
Sales Loop
O
Production Loop
S
Market Loop
S
S
S
S
Portion of
Revenue
Spent on
Fund
Raising
Fund
Raisers
Donations
Revenue
Fund Raising
Follow-
upTime
Request for
Additional
Staff /
Support
Staff /
Support
Follow-
upTime
Attention
to Donors
This goes up when this
goes up because…
When we get too
many donations, our
staff gets overloaded
We don’t get our
thank you letters out
accurately or quickly
The donors notice
they never heard
from us
The workload
decreases with
more help

TheRichGetRicher
BuildItAndThey
W
illCome
O
S
S
S
S S
Sales Loop
O
Production Loop
S
Market Loop
S
S
Request for
Additional
Staff /
Support
Staff /
Support
S
S
Portion of
Revenue
Spent on
Fund
Raising
Fund
Raisers
Donations
Revenue
Fund Raising
Follow-
upTime
Follow-
upTime
Attention
to Donors
YouCan’tAlways
GetW
hatYouW
ant

 A variable will often have more than one cause and/or more than one effect.
 Tell the story “As stress increases sleep decreases” [cause/effect] not “Stress happens
then you can’t sleep” [flowchart / sequential]
 Use nouns for variables - avoid action.
Donations not High Donations
 Use things that can be easily measured.
Length of Project not Time
 Use the positive (desired) sense.
Positive Feedback not Negative Feedback
 Think of unintended as well as expected outcomes.
Caffeine intake influences early morning and evening alertness
 Think of perceived as well as actual variables.
Perceived value is different than Actual Benefit
 Consider a broader scope if you can’t settle on one WHY question. Avoid Why am I
stressed AND overweight? (multiple questions).
 To make more understandable, combine variables to tell the simplest story. Corporate
donations + individual donations + grant money = Donations

Where is your leverage?
What can your company do, your team do, you do?
What intervention is sustainable and possible?
Page 32Page 32 © Russell Martin & Associates www.russellmartin.com

“The trick to problem solving is not just ‘know-how,’ but ‘know-
when’ --which lets you adapt the solution method to the problem,
and not vice versa.”
- Gerald Weinberg
• Intervention can be proposed and
tested
• Mental Models are revealed
• The initial concern has been explored
enough to try out some action

Fund Raising: Better trained
fund raising staff (more with
less)
Marketing: Have a plan to
outsource follow-up temporarily
when donations spike
Capacity Planning: Predict
capacity needs as a function
of fund raising investment
Revisit the purpose
Create trial interventions and do
mental simulations using the modelExamine delays: Can you
shorten?
Acknowledge personal
responsibilities: “Start Where You Are”
Examine Mental Models: more
sales staff ≠ more bookings
O
S
S
S
S S
The Rich
Get Richer
O
Build It And They Will
ComeS
You Can’t Always Get
What You Want S
S
Request for
Additional
Staff /
Support
Staff /
Support
S
S
Portion of
Revenue
Spent on
Fund
Raising
Fund
Raisers
Donations
Revenue
Fund Raising
Follow-
upTime
Follow-
upTime
Attention
to Donors

Revisit your Causal Loop Diagram
Brainstorm answers to the following:
How could your organization improve this problem?
What balanced interventions would improve and not
make worse?
How could your work team improve this problem?
How has your approach to this problem changed as
you’ve modeled it? What are you going to do?
You have 20 minutes to build your
InterventionPage 37

“The bottom line of systems thinking is leverage -
- seeing where actions and changes in
structures can lead to significant, enduring
improvements.” - Peter Senge

At www.russellmartin.com:
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tips and tools
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learning and virtual alumni communities
@nolecture
Lou Russell

40
Trust by
Leadership in
Their People
Trust by
People in Their
Leadership
Performance
Personal
Rewards
Desire for
Stability
Autonomy to
Make
Decisions
Appropriately
Skilled (Strategic)
People
Personal
Buy-In
Client
Expectations
Level of
Investment
Education
Emphasis
Resource
(HR, $, Infra)
Availability
Clarity of
Need
Degree of
Shared Vision
& Values
Perceived
Need for
Communicatio
n
Effectiveness of
Communication
Agility
s
s
s
R
We Are
Good
B
I Read My
Press
Clippings
s
s
s
o
s
s
s
R
Go-pher It
s
s
s
s
s
s
s
o
s
s
B
Fading
Vision
David Aga, Tom Collins, Tom
Igielske, Rachel Korstad, Merald
Nesje, Bob Roepke, Bob
Stemwedel
23 Aug 96
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
s
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21Page 40

Interventions
 Change Reward System.
Mixed Model
 Aggressively and Continually Communicate Vision and Values.
Us Do
 Be willing to balance skills development with the need to respond to day-to-day pressure (value
thinking).
 Expand model and share with influencers.
Mental Models
1 In times of rapid change, my performance may depend on my ‘improv’ abilities. No two days are
alike.
2 Consistent satisfaction leads to trust -- not brownie points or awards, but the intangibles -- trust,
respect, confidence, good will.
3 I don’t know to punch a clock mentally or physically. I set my schedule, my priorities, my
collaborations with colleagues.
4 I can react quickly to changes because I ‘have my own head’, I can think for myself.
5 The better I do, the higher I raise the bar for myself for next time.
6 When I deliver satisfaction, people will take the investment approach rather than the expense
approach. Solid short-term performance is just a given.
7 High-leverage resources of all varieties become more available, even with the understanding
that they take a while to come on-line.

Mental Models, continued
8 Acting with agility depends on having appropriate resources available -- that’s the third leg of the ‘agility
stool’.
9 Clearly one of the high leverage resources is an ‘improved me’! My portfolio needs to grow over time because
the future will likely not be like the past.
10 When I attend conferences and classes and engage in reflection, I gain two ways -- I better understand the
skills which will become more valuable in the future, and I understand that that understanding is itself valuable!
11 I need to have the right skills to be agile, but ‘right’ changes from situation to situation and over time.
12 I get rewarded for my ‘actual’ performance, not my potential to perform, not for being agile, but for performing
with agility.
13 When I get rewarded, I tend to repeat the things that I think led most directly to that reward.
14 I invest in getting good at something, but it turns out not to have strategic value. My practices were okay when
things were stable, but now the environment is just too turbulent. I wake up and I’m obsolete!
15 I want to look like I know what I’m doing. When I sense that my performance has pleased people in the short
term, I’m more likely to buy in for the long haul.
16 I trust that the leadership will not put me in a position where I will fail or embarrass myself.
17 Since ‘they’ haven’t made ‘me’ fail, I come to believe that they do know where they’re going. They and Me
become We.
18 If we think we agree, we probably won’t engage in further conversation to ‘prove’ it.
19 And if we do, we will likely just use jargon and short-cuts -- but our interpretations of those things will drift apart
because of our different experiences.
20 Clarity does not come telepathically -- and even if it did, telepathy is still a kind of communication!
21 My strategy derives from the need, which is connected to the organization’s (and my own) vision.

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